Time: 6:30PM – 8:30PM

Location: Bottom of hill to top on secondary road that parallels 24 and goes to Red Cliff

Fish Landed: 7

The short taste of fishing on the Eagle River on Friday left me aching for a larger serving, so I decided to make another trip to that area of Colorado on Monday, July 8. I cleared my calendar at work, completed my run, workout and some chores and then packed the Santa Fe with fishing and camping gear. I departed by 3PM and drove west on I70 avoiding any serious delay at the tunnel construction area east of Idaho Springs. My next stop was for fuel in Downieville and the gas station contained a Subway, but a machine was not working at the sandwich shop, so I moved on  and exited at Georgetown and purchased a sandwich for my dinner.

I planned to set up camp at Hornsilver along route 24 south of Minturn and Red Cliff as I have done in the past. This small national forest campground is about as close as one can get to the Eagle River. When I pulled into the small seven site campground there were four sites available so I snagged number one and paid for one night. After setting up the tent and eating a quick Subway sandwich dinner I decided to test the waters on Homestake Creek which is across the street from the campground and is characterized by slow meandering flows and not much structure. In one past visit I drove down the road a mile or two to a stretch with a higher gradient and more typical runs, riffles and pools; and I prefer this type of water so I made the same trip on Monday night. Instead of parking at the top, however, I drove to the bottom and parked on the shoulder of the road just before a large 90 degree bend in the road that continues to Red Cliff.

When I crossed the road and surveyed the topography I discovered there was a government facility with no trespassing signs at the bend, so I could not reach the water that way. This forced me to clamber down a steep bank with loose gravel and dirt, and I moved very cautiously by testing each foot placement. Once at the stream however there was a huge pool with large boulders surrounding it on all sides. This would be typical of the first third of the stretch of water I fished on Monday night; plunge pools and steep rock walls creating a small canyon. I tied on a Chernobyl ant and a beadhead hares ear and began prospecting the large pool and landed a nine inch brown after quite a few drifts.

I moved upstream and cast to each plunge pool and landed three or four fish in total in this lower canyon area. It was slow going as I had to plan each move to enable navigating the large rocks and trees along the stream. Eventually I reached a point where a vertical rock wall bordered the stream, and the water was cascading along the base thus preventing me from making further progress. At this point I found an extremely steep relic of a path and carefully negotiated my ascent. When I reached the road and the rim of the canyon I decided to skip the middle section and move directly to the lower gradient upper third.

With a fresh start on a new type of water I switched to a royal stimulator and beadhead pheasant tail nymph. By now darkness began to descend, but I managed to land two additional fish on the royal stimulator with a visible white wing and one on the trailing pheasant tail. The flow was higher than I remembered on a prior visit and this seemed to make for slower fishing. On my previous visit I had a lot of success casting to the soft water on the opposite bank and then holding my rod high to eliminate drag. Small browns would grab the trailing nymph as it drifted along the bank. I landed one fish in this manner, but the technique did not produce as well as it had previously.

When I reached the top of the higher gradient section where the side road intersected with route 24 I continued uptream a bit to the flats. By this time it was nearly 8:30 and dusk was transitioning into darkness. I observed a nice smooth pool for awhile, but saw no rising fish, so I tried to prospect with a dark olive deer hair caddis, but this proved to be futile and I returned to my campsite and my sleeping bag.